An important consumer need in towel and tissue products is to prevent the hands and skin from coming into contact with the liquids, foods, and other materials absorbed or picked up by the tissue or towel product during use. For a wide variety of common uses, especially in bathroom hygiene applications, there is an acute desire not to have any contact with the material dislodged or cleaned by the tissue or towel product. On such occasions, rubber or liquid impervious gloves are frequently used to prevent soiling a person's hands while using the tissue or towel product.
In other applications, such as picking up pet residue, there is also a strong desire not to have any contact with the material being picked up. Also, for towel or tissue products used to wrap sanitary napkins or incontinent pads, there is a strong desire not to have any contact with the liquids absorbed by the pad during use.
One means of satisfying this need is to make one side of the sheet moisture impervious (hydrophobic) while making the opposite-side suitable for absorbing and picking up materials (hydrophilic). However, by making one side of a towel or tissue product moisture impervious, a person using the product has to determine which side is the absorbent side and which side is the liquid impervious side, in order to correctly use the product. Another means of satisfying this need, without having a two-sided product, is to use a barrier layer or moisture impervious layer in the center of the tissue or towel product. However, by making the center ply moisture impervious, there is still the problem that if the product is reversed or flipped over to use the other side, a person's hands will come in contact with the soiled side of the tissue or towel product. This defeats the purpose of the barrier layer. Alternatively, if the towel or tissue product is discarded without using the opposite side, then a significant portion of the product's absorbent capacity is not utilized. This is uneconomical for the consumer since they have paid for the absorbent material on both sides but end up using only one side.
Therefore, there is a need to produce tissue or towel products providing protection from the materials being absorbed or picked up by the tissue and towel product that overcome the two-sidedness issue. There is also a need to produce a tissue or towel product that can be used on both sides without the user's hand coming into contact with the soiled dirty surface of the product.